‘I see—yes,’ says Susan sadly. ‘But go at once. I trust you—remember.’ ‘I’ll never forget it, miss,’ says the unhappy man, sinking down upon the ladder and covering his face with his hands. ‘Jacky,’ says Susan, when they have left the garden and locked the door carefully behind them, ‘if you ever say a word about that poor creature, I’ll never think the same of you again. Do you hear? He is a wretched thief; but I have given my word not to betray him, and you must give your word too. Poor man! I think he was sincerely sorry. You won’t say a word at home or anywhere, Jacky?’ ‘No,’ says Jacky. He looks at her. ‘Why couldn’t you have taken the cherries?’ says he. It takes the entire remainder of the walk home to make the ‘why’ clear to him. CHAPTER IX. ‘He knew not what to say, And so he swore!’ Wyndham, when he met Susan, had been in rather a disgusted mood. Shortly after the Professor’s death he had gone to Norway for a month with the friend whom he had arranged to go with on the morning following the luckless night that had seen the last of the Professor’s experiment. He had induced his friend to wait for him—the latter consenting with rather a bad grace—until the Professor’s funeral was over and his affairs looked into. He had had a last conversation with Denis about the uninvited guest whom the latter had taken to the Cottage, and had told him to find a suitable home for her at once, comfortable—luxurious even, if necessary, as she was now undoubtedly the possessor of three hundred a year—but, at all events, to get her out of the Cottage without further delay. He spoke peremptorily, and Denis promised all things; yet only yesterday, on his return, he had heard from Denis’s own lips that still that girl was located in the Cottage. ‘Didn’t I tell you to get her a home somewhere else?’ ‘Ye did, sir—ye did. Faix, I don’t wondher ye’re mad, but ‘twasn’t aisy to do it.’ ‘To do what?’—firmly. ‘To get her to go.’ ‘What nonsense! A girl like that—as if she could resist! Why, one would think there wasn’t a policeman anywhere. Do you mean to tell me she refused to go?’ ‘No, sir; that’s not me manin’. ’Tis that ould fool of a wife o’ mine. It seems she got set upon her wan way or another, an’ do all I could I couldn’t git her to turn the young lady out. “There’s room for us all here,” says Bridget. “But that’s not his ordhers,” says I—manin’ you, sir. “But whin is she to go?” says she. “That’s nothing to me,” says I. “’Tis so,” says she. “A comfortable home he tould ye to git for her, and where’ll she find wan but here?” An’ divil a fut I could move her from that. Don’t you iver get married, Misther Paul; it will be the undoin’ o’ ye. Ye won’t have a mind o’ yer own in six months.’ ‘I’ve a mind now, any way,’ says Wyndham, still swearing, ‘and that is to get rid of you without another second’s notice.’